Talk:General Discussion/@comment-27042277-20190607033734/@comment-75.162.119.253-20190608013329
Smskinner here, no big surprise on my favorite character: it's Aizu. I've written practical articles on why she's my favorite elsewhere in the wiki, so I won't harass the issue any further. I've been quite interested to read about Aizu's character conception and evolution, and to learn that she predates almost anything else in the series. I do hope we get to see Aizu on the Title card for World's End Chapter 4, along with Tevoran. Speaking of which, Tevoran takes a close second for me in favorite characters. He is quite possibly the most hilarious element of the World's End saga altogether, he perfectly exemplifies the cartoonishly grimdark world he's put in. I love Tevoran's speaking style, I love that he really is just as stupid as he is smart, his brilliant snarkiness, his hair brained plans, and his sheer brazen serious in absolutely EVERYTHING, even when he's telling the company to relax. He is so straightlaced and yet so loopy and off the wall, so perverted and yet so disinterested at the same time, so good and so bad at scheming, and none of these contradictions feel contrived. Aizu makes World's End an epic fantasy, Tevoran makes it a screwball comedy. Right after Tevoran comes Zofia. I love Zofia primarily because she is the perfect foil to Tevoran and the way she bounces off the other characters. She and Tevoran have so many things in common, and yet they're absolutely nothing alike, so of course they hate each other. I don't think it's any accident that Zofia gets the most screentime outside the main trio and Martin; despite being such a wildcard, her antics and demeanor is a ton of fun. As far as villains go, due to the nature of gameplay I think a good deal of them die before you have much of a chance to get attached to them; making some of the more interesting ones feel under-utilized: Jedmesz and the Sewer Shaman suffer the most from this, in my opinion. Which is a shame, because there's no shortage of over-the-top villains in World's End; but I think my favorite would have to be Boris, just for how absolutely screwed up and loving it he is, in every way. Gilbrecht was also fun for that reason. But the overarching villains...well, they're not bad, but they're not the selling point of the series. Fallon is really just your typical arrogant elven sorceress, we've seen this archetype portrayed plenty of times in other fantasy. However, she is slowly becoming more interesting as we learn hints of her past and her true ambitions...I do hope we get to delve more into her story and her dying homeland of Thalaea in the final chapter. By contrast, Duriken is becoming LESS interesting as the series goes on. He began as something truly enigmatic and threatening, but after being defeated twice by Tevoran and Co. he feels just more and more like your generic doomsday villian, supposedly impossibly powerful and unstoppable, but somehow the heroes keep stopping him anyway. You'd think that one of these days he'd wisen up and bring, I don't know, a dozen disposal voros and a couple of priests with him to a fight and he'd be able to slaughter Tevoran and Co with ease; I speculate that the factor that TRULY made Duriken's first boss fight so difficult wasn't simply the man himself but the fact that he actually brought a support character, the priest, who could warp the others and heal them. The problem with Duriken is that he's the villainous equivalent of Superman: not particularly interesting, just really, really strong. And that comes out in his skillset and fighting style as well. Special mention go to Oksana and Vadim as other party members I really like; I put them lower down on the list though because Oksana really doesn't get the spotlight too often (barring Episode 12), and Vadim has had less and less screentime on account of being, well, dead. I do love the Royal Arkanad siblings as well, by the way. Martin isn't particularly funny, but he makes a really good contrast to the rest of the group and the world as a whole. Vera, on the other hand, is just really adorable and quirky in her own special way. Her tantrums and her constant fawning over Aizu are just precious to watch. I would say of the Company members, my list, from most favorite to least favorite, is as follows: 1. Aizu 2. Tevoran 3. Zofia 4. Oksana 5. Vadim 6. Vera 7. Reynold 8. Ivan 9. Ysabel 10. Martin 11. Casimir I don't want to be on the Casimir bashing train, as he was not a bad character, a milquetoast drug dealer/mad scientist, it was just that his humble demeanor and taciturn nature didn't give him much of a presence. I like the idea of him being silent but deadly, but that didn't come to the forefront too often. Ysabel also, well not a bad character by any means, is a little more generic (perpetually PO'd violent tomboy) than some of the more creative and nuanced characters in this list, notwithstanding her love of giant spiders.